Should you invest right now?

The temptation when markets get rocky is to wait. Watch a little longer. See how things develop. Invest when it feels right.

Here's the problem: that feeling rarely comes.

Should you be in cash right now?

Markets move on expectations and last week showed how fast they can shift. Coming into June, the S&P was up about 8% for the year and had just finished nine straight weeks of gains. Three things changed that on June 5: a much stronger-than-expected jobs report pushed interest rates sharply higher.

When rates rise, stocks tend to fall, because money shifts toward bonds and future earnings are worth less today — raising the prospect of a rate hike by year-end; Broadcom's cautious AI chip outlook triggered a sharp selloff in semiconductor stocks and raised doubts about whether the AI boom driving this year's gains can hold; and renewed tensions with Iran added to the pressure. The Nasdaq fell 4.18%, the S&P dropped 2.64% to 7,383.

On June 10, May's inflation came in at 4.2% year over year — the highest since 2023 — confirming that rates will likely stay higher for longer, keeping that weight on stocks in place. None of these are new worries in isolation, but their sudden convergence caught investors entirely off guard.

If you had cash on the sidelines, that dip looked like the perfect moment. But by June 12, the S&P had already climbed back to 7,431—well off its recent lows. This is the defining trap of market timing: you can easily see when a dip happened, but you never know when it's over.

Every day spent waiting for a lower entry point is a day your money isn't working.

Invest it all at once, or spread it out?

For anyone with money ready to put to work, this is the real question.

Putting it all in immediately has a stronger track record. Vanguard studied decades of market data and found that investing everything at once beat spreading it out over 12 months about 68% of the time, by an average of about 2.3%. The reason is straightforward: markets go up more often than they go down. The longer your money is invested, the more of that upward drift it captures.

But 68% also means 32% of the time it doesn't win. And if you invest everything today and the market falls further next week, that can feel bad enough to make you sell — which is the worst possible outcome. Spreading the same amount out over several months means each purchase happens at a different price. You won't catch the very bottom if one exists, but you also won't go all-in at the top.

Neither approach is wrong. The better one depends on something most research doesn't measure: whether you'd hold steady through more pain, or bail. That's worth knowing about yourself before you invest.

What does this mean for your specific situation?

Research gives you a framework. It can't tell you how this decision fits your timeline, your tax picture, the accounts you hold, or where you stand relative to your goals. That's exactly what Mezzi's AI is for.

A few questions worth starting with:

• "Given my current cash position and goals, what are the tradeoffs of investing now versus spreading it out?"

• "How would investing [amount] now change my overall picture across all my accounts?"

• "Are there positions in my taxable accounts showing losses right now that I should review?"

The market will always give you a reason to wait. A clear framework — and the discipline to follow it — is worth more than any prediction about where stocks go next.

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IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. No guarantee of future performance or outcomes is implied.

Savings and performance examples are hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. Actual results will vary based on individual circumstances, portfolio composition, market conditions, and fees.

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